The Nightwatchman - World Wide Rebel Songs

World Wide Rebel Songs - Tom Morello, The Nightwatchman - 2011


This third album from Tom Morello as his folksy singing and strumming persona, The Nightwatchman, furthers his credibility as a stellar solo musician. Coincidence that the release of World Wide Rebel Songs comes following the Arab Spring and right before Occupy protests were being established? I think not. Both Morello and his music energetically rally behind the cause of social justice. During Wisconsin's uproar about collective bargaining, Morello played "Uniontown", a bonus track for the digital download of this album, in support of the ocean of protesters at the foot Madison's city hall.


For this album, Morello has evolved/devolved away from The Nightwatchman's acoustic only approach. When asked why he plugged back in he responded, "I figured I can play guitar like that, so I should." Right on. In most cases as The Nightwatchman, I prefer his acoustic material (this preference in no way applies to his guitar as a WMD playing in Rage.) His acoustic style seems less showy and lends itself to a genuine and natural sounding story-telling. The Woody Guthrie-esque sound is honest from the tip of Tom's commie baseball cap to the soles of his union made boots. Tom's voice has a medium rasp that travels neatly between Johnny Cash and Bruce Springsteen. Sure, he's not the vocal talent that those two are, but when he starts to wail on his electric guitar you won't give a rat's behind. "The Dogs of Tijuana" and "The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse" are heartfelt unplugged songs. Guitar riffs in "It Begins Tonight" are loud, heavy, and alive, yet are totally in sync with the rest of the work on the record. Tom has that rare gift that he can meld the two disparate styles and still convey such powerful material. Star tracks here are the harmonica heavy, call and response "Speak and Make Lightning", "Stray Bullets", and the passionate war cry lament "Save the Hammer for the Man", featuring Ben Harper.


Mr. Morello puts on an awe inspiring performance. The VVers have seen him a few times over the past few years in various sized venues, but most recently touring on this album at the oddball, sit-down Birchmere back in September. The very first time we saw The Nightwatchman perform, we had a sing along to "This Land is Your Land". This time around he invited everyone (yes, everyone) to join his band on stage and sing "World Wide Rebel Songs". Pretty sweet! What's more is that he called out everyone trying to record the performance on their smart phone to put them away and designated ONE person from the audience to record the clip and post it on Youtube for all to view. Respect. During the show he told a lead-in story for each song, be it funny or serious. He told us that the song "Black Spartacus" is about his guitar by the same name, and was inspired by Mick Jones from the Clash who called his guitar a "heart attack machine". It's nice to know that I'm not the only one who names inanimate objects...


Speaking of inanimate objects - the record itself is super dense and feels like it is the weight of a small puppy. This thing is so thick and strangely the edges are squared off instead of tapered. It resembles a small tire.


One suggestion Tom - bring vinyl to your shows to sell! How dare you only have CDs? Luckily Ka-Chunk!! Records in Annapolis happened to have this record waiting to be snatched up.

Street Sweeper Social Club

Well, this post has been a long time coming.  The VVs were first introduced to this supergroup of Tom Morello (formerly of Rage Against the Machine) on guitar and Boots Riley (formerly of The Coup) on vocals at a show in 2009.  Morello was touring on his solo gig, The Nightwatchman, which is mostly acoustic folk music, at Sonar in Baltimore.  The opening act was actually Street Sweeper (as they called themselves then) with Boots rapping and Morello unplugged.  This was not expected, in fact, it seemed like they just came up with the idea for the collaboration on the way to the gig.  It was awesome.  Boots has some pretty sharp lyrics, telling stories of the times, and laced with his brick to the face kind of humor.  Boots is also like four feet tall (his stunning afro adds at least a foot) and pretty adorable.  You will want to give him a high five and a noogie.  Of course Morello's guitar riffs are epic.  Both of Morello's projects that we saw that night were, although vastly different, pretty mind-blowing.  The Nightwatchman's music is definitely worth checking out.  To get a sense of the rest of the show, I distinctly remember ending the night with an all-room Pete Seeger-esque sing-along to Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land".  Yeah.

So back to Street Sweeper.  In the 2009 show, Boots and Morello were in the beginnings of forming their band, and it seemed like they were trying out their demo songs to gauge the audience perception.  Not by accident we saw them again, this time opening for Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction in 2010 at Merriweather Post Pavilion.  They rocked, but in a different way than that first show.  For one, the music was hard and heavy, stadium style, but in a good way.  Morello was playing guitar with his teeth and Boots was busting out the dance moves coinciding with his lyrics.  "Promenade" from the group's first full length album, and remixed on this EP, is an all interactive square dance accompanied by Boots instructing the listeners to circulate and dosey-do.  Their best song preformed live that also carries through to the recorded format is "MEGABLAST" (how can that not be all caps?) - which yes, is an awesome rip-off of Public Enemy's "Megablast" appearing on Yo! Bum Rush the Show.  Speaking of remakes, the seven track Ghetto Blaster EP contains two pretty respectable ones - M.I.A.'s "Paper Airplanes" and LL Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out".  In fact,  "Mama Said" does not sound anything like the original due to Morello's heavy guitar;  the only thing that resembles a cover is the lyrics.  "The New Fuck You" is really not as evil as it sounds and it is a bouncy catchy song to end Side A with.  All of the new songs on the EP are tight, loud, and thoroughly sing-along-able.  Hope the Street Sweepers come back to town again soon.  Every track on this album is primed for a nasty concert throw-down.  Did I mention I'm a sucker for red translucent vinyl?